Colonel Kurtz
Wednesday
After finishing my post i set out to go see the summer palace in beijing. this was home to the rich asian people of the day who kicked it when summers became too hot. i took a cab to get there which was 3usd and paid admission to the heritage site which was about 6.5usd. in many ways visiting the summer palace reminded me of tikal. to even take in the fact that this place was built is amazing. the detail is so rich and the size is vast. the layout is quit simple; there is the palace that is built into a hill and looking out from the palace is many small dammed lakes, which trails were made to walk all the way around. i believe the park was about 729sq acres. In those 729 acres i took about 300 pictures.
not bothering to look for directions i immediately went the wrong way. instead of going right to the palace i took a left and walked all the way around the lake! around the lake there are special domed buildings, but the most impressive was the 17arch bridge that had 500 tiger sculpters along the rails. this bridge took you to a small island where there were nice short trails around the circumfrance of the island. on the island old men were practicing tai chi which was nice to watch for a few minutes, but not too long so as to be rude.
i kept walking around the lake went over this display of 6 different bridges. all were built intricately. these bridges finally took me to the palace. this place was amazing. my favorite part about the whole summer palace was this long hallway (can't remember the name) which is about 2,700 ft long. what makes it so beautiful is that it is covered in intricate decorations along all of it. on top of that the artwork changes throughout the walkway. i finished the trip up and went back home. i only have the address to point to in order to get home. the driver (maybe he was new) did nto know hot to get there. so, we got lost in beijing rush hour traffic. it is pretty nuts. my favorite part is old men riding their bikes with a flatbed in back and they are carrying about 8 computers or dvd players, or whatever! i finally get home and rest. then kyle calls me and here begins my reference to Colonel Kurtz. (picture is of the music stage, i took video of people playing)
being in beijing makes me feel like i am some invader. the fear (or fun for some) to take on a hedonistic lifestlye is quite overwhelming. to many people outside of china the cost of living is so low that anything can happen. in fact it is quite shocking. which leads me to our dinner...
there are some co-workers from redmond that kyle and some of his friends wanted to take out. actually, they wanted them to take us out. microsoft has a policy of giving employees about 75usd to spend on dinner (entertainment basically) when traveling. these guys were up for it, and we took them to this korean restaurant. i forgot to take my meat pills (these are meat enzymes to help me break down animals with a supplemental pill that allows me to create more acid in stomach to break the meat down easier). We ordered way too much food, which happens a lot, and some beer (6 24oz beers to start).
we got a private booth with sliding doors and the woman was too cook all of our food for us, in front of us. i thought that was pretty neat. we just sat there talking and new rounds of food would slowly appear (as a note this is why i think asian people are more thin. the food it seems is slowly distributed and dinner is always quite social). well, beijing being beijing everything got realy crazy realy quick. out of nowhere the cook (foo-yen is like a waitress) throws down this live octopus about a foot long onto the plate for cooking! at first we thought it was dead, but it was quite alive. i had to take a video of it. we were served plenty of food, but another interested piece we had was fried snail. it tasted just like muscle.
we left the restaurant (the bill was about 70usd for 6 people to eat and 12 24oz beers). we went to a college club saw some people play english trivia. then went to this swanky club with granite tabletops that changed color. it was a martini club and we got 6 martinis for 12usd. (picture when translations do not always work out. this may be one of my favorite pictures from beijing)
After finishing my post i set out to go see the summer palace in beijing. this was home to the rich asian people of the day who kicked it when summers became too hot. i took a cab to get there which was 3usd and paid admission to the heritage site which was about 6.5usd. in many ways visiting the summer palace reminded me of tikal. to even take in the fact that this place was built is amazing. the detail is so rich and the size is vast. the layout is quit simple; there is the palace that is built into a hill and looking out from the palace is many small dammed lakes, which trails were made to walk all the way around. i believe the park was about 729sq acres. In those 729 acres i took about 300 pictures.
not bothering to look for directions i immediately went the wrong way. instead of going right to the palace i took a left and walked all the way around the lake! around the lake there are special domed buildings, but the most impressive was the 17arch bridge that had 500 tiger sculpters along the rails. this bridge took you to a small island where there were nice short trails around the circumfrance of the island. on the island old men were practicing tai chi which was nice to watch for a few minutes, but not too long so as to be rude.
i kept walking around the lake went over this display of 6 different bridges. all were built intricately. these bridges finally took me to the palace. this place was amazing. my favorite part about the whole summer palace was this long hallway (can't remember the name) which is about 2,700 ft long. what makes it so beautiful is that it is covered in intricate decorations along all of it. on top of that the artwork changes throughout the walkway. i finished the trip up and went back home. i only have the address to point to in order to get home. the driver (maybe he was new) did nto know hot to get there. so, we got lost in beijing rush hour traffic. it is pretty nuts. my favorite part is old men riding their bikes with a flatbed in back and they are carrying about 8 computers or dvd players, or whatever! i finally get home and rest. then kyle calls me and here begins my reference to Colonel Kurtz. (picture is of the music stage, i took video of people playing)
being in beijing makes me feel like i am some invader. the fear (or fun for some) to take on a hedonistic lifestlye is quite overwhelming. to many people outside of china the cost of living is so low that anything can happen. in fact it is quite shocking. which leads me to our dinner...
there are some co-workers from redmond that kyle and some of his friends wanted to take out. actually, they wanted them to take us out. microsoft has a policy of giving employees about 75usd to spend on dinner (entertainment basically) when traveling. these guys were up for it, and we took them to this korean restaurant. i forgot to take my meat pills (these are meat enzymes to help me break down animals with a supplemental pill that allows me to create more acid in stomach to break the meat down easier). We ordered way too much food, which happens a lot, and some beer (6 24oz beers to start).
we got a private booth with sliding doors and the woman was too cook all of our food for us, in front of us. i thought that was pretty neat. we just sat there talking and new rounds of food would slowly appear (as a note this is why i think asian people are more thin. the food it seems is slowly distributed and dinner is always quite social). well, beijing being beijing everything got realy crazy realy quick. out of nowhere the cook (foo-yen is like a waitress) throws down this live octopus about a foot long onto the plate for cooking! at first we thought it was dead, but it was quite alive. i had to take a video of it. we were served plenty of food, but another interested piece we had was fried snail. it tasted just like muscle.
we left the restaurant (the bill was about 70usd for 6 people to eat and 12 24oz beers). we went to a college club saw some people play english trivia. then went to this swanky club with granite tabletops that changed color. it was a martini club and we got 6 martinis for 12usd. (picture when translations do not always work out. this may be one of my favorite pictures from beijing)
posted by miles at
6:10 PM
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